What are the legal rights of a majority owner of Polish real estate property?

This is for a property lawyer in Poland. I assume the law applies to all cities. Here is the scenario: Rental property is now owned by two individuals. When minority owner bought his share, city administration which managed the property for many years, assigned the management to minority owner. Majority owner took possession of his share via a legal inheritance process, after minority owner assumed control of property.

Minority owner is managing the property without full disclosure, and performing work on property without permission from majority owner. Can majority owner apply to the Court to take over management of property?

Thanks,

could you give us the land register number of this property?
normally, the owners cooperate in management and if they disagree they can turn to the court for a decision; every owner can also file the petition to the court for assignment of the property manager who will manage the property instead of the owners; a change of property manager is also possible - especially for the majority owner.

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I am a lawyer based in Poland. I would be able to help you with this case.

Here is what a relatively new Polish Lawyer with property law background told me:

Polish law allows only two ways to handle this:

1. apply to court to take over property. Court will appoint manager which will report to the court and not to the owners. Owners may submit candidates, but the court is not obliged to chose them.

2. Divide the property.

In other words, there is no mechanism in polish law for majority owner to assume control via a court decision.

Thank you.

- is it not a way to gain control via court decision? the court can nominate you as manager. It is true though that the court doesn't have to choose you.

You can also file the petition to remove the manager so the owners can manage on they own. You will have more rights as a majority owner.

If there's a dispute about who should be the manager and you apply to court to appoint one, the court has no option but to appoint a third party - it can't favor one side over another.

To remove a manager, you need to have a majority vote of the owners or demonstrate that the majority is harming the minority. It's not an easy process.

To legate and inkrakow:
Just to summarize this thread: Currently Minority owner is managing the property abusively (as explained in first message). Majority owner desires to take over management.

Two-stage approach suggested: Apply to court to assume control of building. After this is accomplished, majority owner applies to court to take over management of property. Is this a fair summary?

Questions:
1. What are the risks
2 How long does it typically take for court to rule on application to assume management of property, and how long to decide on application of majority owner to take over control of property?

Thank you.

Sorry - I misunderstood. You should be able to take back control of the building from the minority owner, but from what I know (I'm not a lawyer but am involved in a few administrator/co-owner disputes over property) there are a few factors that determine how you need to go about it, e.g.

- if the property has been divided between the owners (i.e. owner A owns this part, owner B owns that part)
- if there are any other owners and the proportions of ownership (if one owner has the majority and could in theory force anything through a different arrangement applies)

- if a homeowner association has been set up (wspólnota mieszkaniowa) or not
- the terms of the original agreement between whoever originally gave the management to the minority owner and the person from who the majority owner inherited their share.

If the minority owner is carrying out work that exceeds the normal scope of responsibility of an administrator (minor or emergency repairs) without authorization, you don't have to pay for it.

Talk to a lawyer - they will ask you all the right questions and tell you what you need to do. In my case, the process of getting a court-appointed administrator took about 6 months, but she turned out to be useless and it took about 2 years to get another one appointed and he has turned out to be great.

Another Option is to divide the property. If this was done via court proceedings, how long will it normally take?

It really depends on the property and your consensus on the division, so it's even hard to guess but I would opt for 1-2 years.

If the division would be really complicated you can consider "quad usum division" which will mean that you still co-own the property but you agree that one part will be used by you and the second one by the minority owner. It doesn't solve all the problems though because you will still have to agree on the management of the common parts (staircase, etc.).

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

On a related topic: A non-Polish citizen inherits part of a commercial property in Poland and is registered in the Land and Mortgage registry as part owner. If such person were to sell his share to other owners of property after holding the property for less than 5 years, would such non-Polish person have to pay 10% inheritance tax and 19% income tax?

Thank you.